 | | | Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan
Asked Feb 9, 2009, 01:50 PM
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35 Answers This is one way to force socialized medicine on us, hide it in the "stimulus" package. Quote: Commentary by Betsy McCaughey
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obamas stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.are. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bills health rules will affect every individual in the United States (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and guide your doctors decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and learn to operate less like solo practitioners.
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not meaningful users of the new system will face penalties. Meaningful user isn't defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose more stringent measures of meaningful use over time (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the tough decisions elected politicians won't make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschles book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept hopeless diagnoses and forgo experimental treatments, and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. Board discussed in Daschles book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. Health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administrations economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. Will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administrations health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it, he said. The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it inexcusable and irresponsible for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nations gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)
| As I noted before when tom touched on this, a lot of Americans (myself included) complain of insurance companies determining what treatments theyll pay for. How do YOU feel about the feds making those decisions?
As always I think congress should have to live under the rules they make so who's going to be the first to lead by example and be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them? Byrd, Kennedy, Akaka? Who's ready to sacrifice their mom or grandpa to stimulate the economy, anyone?
Thread Summary |
35 Answers
 | Uber Member | |
Feb 11, 2009, 02:09 PM
| | | 
Well, according to Newsweek we don't have to worry about that problem any longer as We're All Socialists Now. Swell. I guess it's official if Newsweek says so. | | |  | Uber Member | |
Feb 11, 2009, 03:17 PM
| | | Quote:
Originally Posted by twinkiedooter  Attachment 16562
Well, according to Newsweek we don't have to worry about that problem any longer as We're All Socialists Now. Swell. I guess it's official if Newsweek says so. | Yeah it seems like it is something we are suppose to be excited about!
I can't wait until four or five years from now when it all falls apart before their eyes. | | | | Uber Member | |
Feb 12, 2009, 05:24 PM
| | | Unfortunately, NH4U, it probably won't fall apart. Remember, Russia was "stuck" with socialism for 50+ years. They just recently got out from under this. Marxism is worse than scary. If you would like to see what America is going to look like in a few years, just remember what Russia was like under Stalin and you'll see what I'm talking about. | | |  | Ultra Member | |
Feb 13, 2009, 03:45 AM
| | | the state is getting more and more deeply involved in business, even taking controlling interests in some private companies. And the state is even trying to “make policy” for private companies they do not control, but merely “help” with “infusions of capital,” as in the recent call for salary caps for certain CEOs. So state power is growing at the expense of corporations. But that’s not socialism. Socialism rests on a firm theoretical bedrock: the abolition of private property. What is happening now.....is an expansion of the state’s role, an increase in public/private joint ventures and partnerships, and much more state regulation of business. It’s fascism. during the great economic crisis of the 1930s, fascism was widely regarded as a possible solution, indeed as the only acceptable solution to a spasm that had shaken the entire First World, and beyond. It was hailed as a “third way” between two failed systems (communism and capitalism), retaining the best of each. Private property was preserved, as the role of the state was expanded. This was necessary because the Great Depression was defined as a crisis “of the system,” not just a glitch “in the system.” And so Mussolini created the “Corporate State,” in which, in theory at least, the big national enterprises were entrusted to state ownership (or substantial state ownership) and of course state management. Faster, Please! We Are All Fascists Now | | |  | Ultra Member | |
Feb 13, 2009, 10:16 AM
| | | Good news is, our leaders haven't even read the bill yet. Maybe that's how this fascism creeps in, yeah think? Quote:
When CNSNews.com asked members of both parties on Capitol Hill on Thursday whether they had read the full, final bill, not one member could say, Yes.
The Democrats have thrown this at us very last-minute, said Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.). That's why the rule of thumb in the United States Congress should be, When in doubt, vote no, because the devil is in the details and that's why this stimulus is not worthy of support.
Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.) shared that sentiment. The American public expects for us to get in and know what were voting on, Boozman said. But there are very few members from Congress that are going to have time to actually read this thing.
| There oughtta be a law, no bill can be passed if it hasn't been read, no congressman can vote on a bill they haven't read, perhaps even no legislation can be passed prior to being posted in a searchable text document being posted on line. I don't care, read it - every word out loud if you have to - to the entire congress. If for no other reason having not read the bill should be enough to vote no. After all, our president promised transparency and accountability... Quote: | And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government. | | | | | Ultra Member | |
Feb 13, 2009, 10:38 AM
| | | That won't stop the whole lot of them from voting for it anyway. Maybe if they were compelled to read the legislation they pass it wouldn't be over 1000 pages long.
Wasn't any new bill supposed to be posted on the internet for 5 days before a vote ? I think I heard the candidate Obama say that . Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days. http://www.barackobama.com/issues/ethics/
He already signed SCHIP without the 5 day rule and he plans on signing this Monday. | | |
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